


this is our divine

by vaudelin



Series: supernatural codas [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Episode Related, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Post-Episode: s14e20 Moriah, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 04:24:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19288072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaudelin/pseuds/vaudelin
Summary: Cas glowers but says nothing more, just relies on that kicked-puppy-slash-wrathful glare he’s been practicing the past couple days, what with Dean’s penchant for repeatedly picking fights.The worst part is that they can’t wait here forever. Their odds will only grow worse. Even an hour more and they’re probably dead.In the silence, the dead rasp against the front door, rattling it on its hinges.There’s still work to do.





	this is our divine

They make it through the graveyard onto the adjoining property, cutting a swath through the undead with iron bars and angel blades. The ramshackle church they find makes a paltry shelter—little more than a chapel and a dozen pews, with an unadorned altar at the end—but it’s not like they have better options. Sam and Dean make quick work out of barricading themselves inside, using nails and plywood left out for insurmountable repairs, while Cas quickly tours the interior of the church, scouting out weaknesses in their perimeter.

“There’s a second entrance on the south side,” Cas tells him, so Dean grabs a handful of nails and sets to hammering the basement door shut. He and Sam then take turns boarding shut the windows, tightening up the bones of the place until the only light left inside comes from their flashlights.

They’re all dragging on their feet, wiped out in more than the physical sense, so it pisses Dean off that they’ve barely caught their breath before Cas says, “I want to go back out.”

Dean thumps his head against the pew behind him, cursing both Cas and the pain. “The hell you are.”

“I’m not leaving Jack out there,” Cas argues, “not with the undead—”

“News flash, Cas! We go out without a plan and we’re dead too.”

Cas glowers but says nothing more, just relies on that kicked-puppy-slash-wrathful glare he’s been practicing the past couple days, what with Dean’s penchant for repeatedly picking fights.

The worst part is that they can’t wait here forever. Their odds will only grow worse. Even an hour more and they’re probably dead.

In the silence, the dead rasp against the front door, rattling it on its hinges.

There’s still work to do.

Sighing, Sam hauls himself up from the pew where he’d been resting. He rolls his injured shoulder as he moves, testing the bandaging they’d wrapped it in. “Gonna check out the basement, see if there’s anything.” Sam taps Dean on the shoulder as he passes, and it’s as good an idea as any of them got right now, so Dean follows him downstairs.

“We’re not leaving without him,” Cas mutters as Dean walks by.

Dean clenches his fist. As tempting as it is—as close as his anger has been brewing beneath his skin—he doesn’t want this fight. He leaves without unleashing a further snide remark.

Downstairs, they look around for weapons but there’s nothing, just a rec room and a kitchen with some stale crackers in the cabinets. Dean picks through a couple sandwiches left in the now-warming refrigerator, sniffing the meat before shrugging and taking a bite. He’s not hungry, but he’ll need the strength if they’re going to survive.

“Eat up,” he tells Sam, tossing over a plastic-wrapped egg salad sandwich. Sam wrinkles his nose, but he looks through cabinets with half a sandwich in one hand, his flashlight in the other.

Without conversation filling the silence, Dean can hear the dead distantly milling around outside.

He thinks of Jack, abruptly, sprawled out on the ground.

Do the dead scavenge their own? Dean’s gut clenches at the thought.

Dean mills around the rec room, noting a couple fold-up card tables and not much else. “Find anything in there?” he calls behind him.

Sam grunts an affirmative, so Dean whips his flashlight around, and finds Sam with an armful of cleaning sprays.

“How much d’you remember from chemistry class?” Sam asks him.

“Holy shit,” Dean replies, smiling a bit for the first time in days.

They just might make it out.

 

* * *

 

They sort the nails into palm-sized piles, and upheave the recycling bin for its bottles and cans. With Sam’s handy-dandy noggin put to good use, they prep two types of arsenal, filling a couple dozen cans and bottles with the contents of their current last stand.

“Pyro first to clear them,” Sam tells them, pointing to the plastic bottles, followed by the cans. “Then we’ll drop the nail grenades as we cut through. Don’t be caught within twenty yards of those ones, or it’s all over for your legs.”

“Hot potato this shit. Got it.” Dean grunts, the second to last board falling from the front door’s barricade. He glances to Cas. “You ready?”

Cas nods, falling back and hefting up a card table by two of its legs. A final look to Sam, seeking confirmation, and then Dean’s throwing open the church doors and feeding them to the wolves.

He and Sam lob the napalm bottles high and far the same time Cas makes a forward push with his shield-table, slamming into the crowd of undead, buying enough time and space for the fires to spread. The firebombs send a few of the nearby zombies scattering, and with Sam bowling-ball tossing the nail-filled cans into the dead, the iron knocks their knees out like salt in festering wounds.

It’s barely enough to get the three of them outside and running, but that’s all they need for now. Dean squirts a bottle of accelerant across the line of shrapnel cans on the ground and promptly high-tails it after Sam, not looking back.

 

* * *

 

They grab both cars and drive like demons for Lebanon, Dean wasting too much time blockading Cas’ truck with the Impala, but Cas finally gives up the martyr move and heads for the road instead of deeper into the graves. It also gives Dean the bonus of being able to follow him, ensuring Cas keeps on the path to the bunker, the three of them bruised and bloodied but otherwise alive.

The bunker, when they arrive, is crowded by a dozen or more cars abandoned along the gravel road approach. Dozens of people linger in the tall grass by the power plant, hanging by the hidden side entrance.

Sam and Dean both climb out the car with crowbars raised, too tired to start this fight but too stubborn to die tonight. They run quick to meet Cas, but Cas holds an arm back to them, gesturing for them to wait. Now that he’s looking, Dean stars picking familiar faces out from the crowd, particularly when even more people come creeping out of the dark.

“Max?” Sam calls out. “Stacy?”

The two teens step forward as if summoned, the both of them trembling with their arms around each other. Behind them, Dean sees Marta the postal worker and Donnie the bartender, Rick the butcher and Val the supermarket clerk. More than one young face has a parent or two standing nearby, looking baffled but otherwise fiercely protective of their kids.

Eliot steps out from beside Ethan, waving his arm limply in the direction of Lebanon. “The whole town's run over. We didn’t know where else to go.”

“You did the right thing,” Cas says gravely.

Nodding to Sam, Dean wastes no time bringing them all inside.

 

* * *

 

The next couple hours pass in a blur, Dean working in tandem with Sam and Cas to put what seems like all of Lebanon up in the Men of Letters dormitories. He gets lost in the rhythm of dusting dressers and changing linens, of fetching lightbulbs for burnt-out lamps and passing out extra pillows.

Dean recruits Bea and Ethan into the kitchen, steadying their nerves with the monotony of categorizing rations. Stacy and Max, he puts in the library with the card index, telling them to look for any books relating to the undead or zombies, just about any iteration of the walking dead. Eliot and a couple of the more brazen kids hang out at a table nearby, planning a supply run at daybreak.

The busted room in the archives, they barricade shut its door. Sam mutters something about the sigils the Darkness might had broken, too, leaving Dean to read between the lines about all the exciting research they have coming up ahead.

All in all it must be two by time Dean gets a quiet moment to himself, though it’s hard to tell which half of day it is when outside the sky is always dark. The Lebanon kids have finally collapsed into their own rooms, leaving the library empty for him and Sam to sprawl across the tables, researching magic they can use to beef up the bunkers security against the undead. He wishes they could just call up Rowena, but all the phone lines are dead.

Cas joins them sometime later, grabbing a book across from Dean and sitting without comment. His expression is blank, though his mouth remains a hard, thin line. Dean knows he’s still pissed he couldn’t grab Jack’s body before they bailed.

As if reading Dean’s thoughts, Cas says, “I need to go.”

Dean inhales sharply. “You’re not going back there.”

“I’m not,” Cas agrees. “I’m needed elsewhere.”

“You’re not going to Heaven,” Dean snaps, loud enough to wake Sam from his doze. More quietly, he says, “For fuck’s sake, we need you here.”

“Not Heaven,” Cas says, training an icy glare onto him. “Hell.”

Dean tries to calm himself, he really does. He tries honing himself down into a single thought, getting real careful about what he needs to say.

“Fuck you,” is all that comes out, despite his efforts. Dean slams shut his book as he rises, stomping away.

 

* * *

 

It’s Sam who comes for him a half-hour later, predictably, having deemed enough time has past for Dean to have let go of the worst of his rage. Sam’s hardly crossed the threshold into Dean’s room before he says, “Cas has a good point.”

Dean snorts and shuts his book. Not wasting any time, then.

“If Chuck opened the gates of Hell,” Sam continues, straddling the chair by Dean’s bed, “then we need to know just what that means. Was it just the souls, or the demons too? Assuming it was only the official gates, I mean.”

“What?” Dean says, “Why wouldn’t it be just the gates? Or—wait, are you thinking—”

“—the Cage,” Sam finishes, nodding. “We need to know whether Michael— _our_ Michael—is out.”

Dean’s spine lengthens without his permission, a shiver sending the vertebrae running from each other. He bunkers down more firmly into his bedding in retaliation, props the book of research up on his chest for distraction. “He wouldn’t’ve.”

“ _We don’t know_ ,” Sam says. “Chuck’s God, he could’ve done whatever he wanted.” He adds, scoffing, “We didn’t follow script, so he’ll punish us however he sees fit. Dramatic irony, or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, thinking what that would be like. Dodging one Michael only to die by the other. “But still. Cas doesn’t need to go and find out. If Michael’s out, we’ll know pretty damn quick.”

Sam murmurs agreement, but it’s in a tone of voice Dean knows by heart, the one that means ‘I’m agreeing with you for now, but we’re talking about this again later.’ Dean lets it go without complaint, knowing that Sam will leave now that he’s said his piece.

At the door, Sam turns back for an odd look, one perched someplace between sad and annoyed. “And Dean? Make up with Cas. We’ve got too much on our plate to be dealing with that too.”

Dean harrumphs a heavy sigh. Damn his little brother for always being right.

 

* * *

 

They find a routine in the bunker, over the days that follow.

Unlike the last batch of refugees they took in, the majority of Lebanon’s townsfolk have next to no combat experience, let alone any idea how to protect themselves against the supernatural. Sam takes a quick show of hands, and though the number of people who suspected something fishy about the old power plant range in the upper fifties, the number that actual knew about vampires and werewolves et al comes down to less than a couple dozen.

The gas attendant stubs a cigarette out on the war table, and makes a small show out of briefing them all on the town’s history, how her mother had kept a close eye on the strange men who rolled into town in the early 1930s.

“Seem to recall those suited men used to haul salt up here from Ellsworth County by the truckful,” Old Nat tells them, fishing another cigarette loose from its packet. “None of the crops grew within a quarter-mile of this place for over seventy years.” She rolls her arthritic wrists around for emphasis, and with a flick of her zippo, she says, “Might be that your salt circle is already in place.”

“That’s one worry down,” Cas says grimly, sounding not at all comforted.

“At least it’s something,” Dean says.

The days get broken into regimens, the townsfolk splitting into teams that cover training against the most critical monsters, zombies and ghosts and demons at the forefront of their attention. The kids catch on quick, and there are a couple war vets around that offer their skills up for extra lessons in close combat. Supply runs start heading out on a schedule, coming back with food and weaponry and the occasional survivor, medicine and comfort items from the life they had lived before.

“Still a lot of undead out there,” Donnie says, breathing hard, “but I think Nat’s right about that salt line. Haven’t seen anything living or dead come close our way.”

“Small miracles,” Sam says with a thin smile, exhaustion showing in the bags beneath his eyes.

Over a two week span of these treks, the runners have only one close call—one of the older guys, Barrie, got too close to a wandering undead, let it get a swipe in before backup came over and chopped off its head. They were able to carry him back to the bunker, though, and confirm the wound wasn’t infected.

So things are going well, or at least better than Dean ever expected. He only gets the wind knocked out of him once, when he overhears Stacy and Max in the library, the teens nervously gossiping about where the other creepy kid is—all within earshot of Cas.

“Jack died,” Cas tells them curtly, voice loud and enunciation so crisp Dean could feel the chill even from bookstacks away.

The girls murmur guilty apologies and make a hasty departure, but that’s it, the damage is done.

Dean doesn’t even have to look to know how broken Cas is.

He doesn’t have to, but Dean glances out from around the shelves anyways, witnessing from afar just how miserable Cas seems lately, the fresh lines and hollows carved into his face. Dean’s gut fills with regret for how they got here, how he all but drove them to this place where Jack ended up dead.

He hates that he can’t just walk over there, come up beside Cas and throw an arm around him. Offer him the comfort they both so desperately need.

Dean wants to, but the trip to Hell is still stubbornly on the table. He’s unwilling to give ground on that just yet.

 

* * *

 

The subject comes up, naturally, on a night when Dean’s patience has already been shredded, all his good temperament laid to waste the moment a pipe burst in the C dormitories, leaving him and Rick and a couple other volunteers scrambling to contain the flood now pouring out into the halls.

Dean spends half the night relocating affected people into the empty E dorm rooms, hauling out bedding and lightbulbs and every other necessity all over again. The other half he spends mopping and reloading the washer and dryer between checks to see how badly section C’s been damaged.

“Fucking wiring’s shot in here,” Dean shouts behind him, expecting Sam at the bedroom’s doorframe but getting—

“Oh,” Dean says. “Hey Cas.”

Cas arches a brow and stops at the threshold, his shoes skirting the edge of a puddle. “We need to talk.”

Not this. Not again.

“Not now,” Dean says. “I’m busy,” he adds, turning his back in emphasis.

“I’m leaving now,” Cas says. “For Hell,” he adds. Then, when Dean says nothing: “Alright then. Goodbye.”

His feet shuffling, Dean hears Cas turn, departing down the hall. Dean listens as long as his ears can strain, and then he’s tearing out the door after Cas, half-slipping because he’s an idiot, _an idiot_ , why does he always let this shit go on for too long.

“ _Cas_ ,” Dean calls after him, rushing around a corner, past the kitchen and down another hallway leading to the war room.

He catches sight of the tails of Cas’ trench coat heading for the stairs, but the angel never slows, not until Dean jogs up behind Cas and forcibly grabs his arm.

“You can’t,” Dean breathes, half anger and half exhaustion. These days he’s tired, always tired. “It’s Hell.”

Bitterly, Cas says, “I’ve been once or twice, if you remember.” More subdued, he adds, “I already know where there’s a gate nearby. It shouldn’t take more than a day or two to check on the Cage.”

“If the demons even let you,” Dean says.

“If,” Cas concedes.

Dean scoffs. “And since when has our lives ever gone as they should?”

A muscle in Cas’ jaw flexes. There’s an argument there, pressed up behind his teeth, but Cas isn’t letting it out. Not when he thinks it might be their parting words.

Their last words.

“Don’t—” Dean begins, but Cas cuts him off with a sharp sigh, shaking himself free from Dean’s grip. He scrambles after, tries again, saying, “I won’t let you—”

“You will not ‘let’ me do anything,” Cas says archly, rounding on him so quickly that Dean almost falls backward. “I am doing this whether you like it or not.”

“Cas, just think on it, even a min—”

“Dean,” Cas grits out. “Stop. You won’t change my mind.”

Too much. It’s too much. Dean grabs Cas by his lapels and spins him around, slamming him up against the nearest wall.

Up close, in Cas’ face, Dean grits out, “If you interrupt me one more time, so help me God.”

Cas glowers, but blessedly he keeps his mouth shut.

The strength of his anger now waning, Dean finds his legs are trembling. He wavers forward. Lets his chin fall.

Lets his brow drop to Cas’ shoulder.

“We need you here,” Dean says, softly, his cheek dragging as he rises from the comfort of Cas’ coat. Breath shaking, Dean stares into Cas and allows himself to crumble. “We lost our _kid_ , Cas. Don’t make me lose you too.”

Cas’ brow pinches slightly, his mouth softening with dawning comprehension. He covers Dean’s hands where they’re still gripping his lapels, his fingers sliding until their hands have slotted together.

Cas squeezes, and doesn’t let him go.

“You neither,” Cas says, quiet. “I won’t allow Michael to threaten you again.”

Dean barks out a weak laugh. Of course. He should’ve known.

He drops his forehead to Cas’, breathing, just a moment. Just so Dean can gather enough courage to finally kiss him.

A quick press to Cas’ mouth is all he intends to make, some brief gesture to convey what Dean has always put so poorly into words. He wants Cas to know how sorry he is, that they’ve ended up here, after everything. That time and time again Dean has held Cas accountable for things beyond his control. That Dean has been hellbent on seeing the worst in everybody, lately, especially the ones he loves most. That Dean had aimed a gun at Jack with even a fraction of intent to use it.

Dean means the kiss as a quick comment, but then Cas answers by carding a hand through Dean’s hair, fingers cupping the back of his head and keeping Dean close. His mouth softens and his lips part. He sighs an invitation, and Dean licks along the seam of him, crowding into the warmth within.

Dean draws him away from the wall, makes a dance out of walking them to the centre of the room, kissing all the while. The backs of Cas’ knees brushing the lip of the war table, and he stumbles backward, taking Dean with him. His hands find Cas’ hips and grip him with a possessive strength that demands Cas stay, if only for a minute, to enjoy the space the two of them have claimed.

Cas, who is more than willing to press his body against Dean’s, makes room for Dean to crowd in closer, spreading his legs and reeling him in. Dean drops his kisses to Cas’ jaw, mouthing a line along his throat. He loosens the tie as he comes to it, his mouth chasing the buttons he undoes down Cas’ chest.

“Dean,” Cas murmurs, as Dean kneels. His hand is shaking where it’s settled into Dean’s hair.

“C’mon,” Dean says, breathing in the skin of Cas’ stomach. He urges Cas up by his hips, pulling his underwear down enough to spring his cock free.

Cas adjusts in his seat, instinctively canting into the hands Dean runs over both his thighs. His dick bumps Dean’s chin as Dean nuzzles down, mouthing up the length of him before dragging the flat of his tongue against the slit. Cas hisses, his fingers tightening in Dean’s hair, but his eyes are firmly shut as Dean bats an eye up at him, so Dean pulls out all the stops, sucking Cas in until he breaks with a low groan.

Dean pulls off, licks his lips. “How much do you want me?”

“Always,” Cas says, shakily. “Everything.”

“Then take it.” Dean maintains eye contact as he bows down, running his mouth along Cas’ cock, kissing the head, his tongue forming a plush bed for Cas to curve along. He makes a show out of bobbing his head, doing everything he can to increase the tremble he feels building in Cas’ body.

Cas touches his cheek where it’s hollowed, his fingers feather-light. Gently, Dean nudges Cas’ hand back to the crown of his head, and so Cas tugs slightly, changing the angle so that Dean must elongate his neck.

Dean hums his appreciation, eyes closing, falling into the rhythm of Cas’ careful thrusts into his mouth. He opens his jaw as far as he can, takes Cas in as deep as he can, a strange feeling building in him all the while.

Something like forgiveness.

“Dean,” Cas says softly, this time touching beneath Dean’s eyes. Dean opens to find the world blurry, Cas staring down at him with a heartbroken look on his face.

“I’m fine,” Dean croaks. “Keep going,” he adds, when Cas refuses to remain sitting.

Instead, Cas moves off the table into Dean’s lap, cradling Dean’s face in his hands and holding him close, cheek to cheek, as sorrow gets the better of him.

Dean breathes out wetly into Cas’ shoulder. He hates for how badly he needs Cas to keep touching him right now.

He should be stronger than this, damnit. He’s already shed his tears.

After, Cas takes his hand and dovetails their fingers together. He helps Dean stand, his shirt undone, pants still hanging loosely open at the waist. Cas looks ridiculous, and yet sexy, and Dean starts giggling because somehow this is where his life is now, standing beside the angel he loves who he’s too sad to fuck right now.

Cas keeps his hands on Dean, his mouth brushing Dean’s cheek. Through his kiss, he murmurs, “Let’s get you to bed.”

“Don’t need the charity,” Dean mutters, but he complies, allowing Cas to guide him back to his bedroom, this time not to spend the night alone.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, Dean inhales sharply as he breaks free from cold, deep water, blinking rapidly as he forces himself awake. He sits upright without thinking, dislodging Cas from where he’s still tucked up behind Dean, his arm heavy where it’s landed across his waist.

Cas rises to wakefulness more gracefully, just a second or two of mental processes passing before his gaze sharpens, honing on the unsteady expression on Dean’s face. “Another nightmare?”

Dean releases a harsh breath. “Think I’d be over it by now.”

Cas hums thoughtfully. His fingers trace along the curve of Dean’s hip. He looks beautiful without his clothes on.

Dean collapses back into Cas, because he can. Because he’s weak and human and fallible, and because Cas is there for him no matter what stupid shit Dean tries to drag them through.

“What do we do today?” Cas asks, straight into Dean’s shoulder. Dean shrugs, turning the touch into a kiss.

“You’re staying?” Dean watches Cas nod affirmative. Unimaginable tension leaches out of Dean at the sight. He can’t thank Cas for not going through with his idiotic plan, but he’ll still reward him, bowing down to plant his mouth firmly over Cas’.

A moment leads into deeper breathing, and they’re halfway along to something more heated than waking kisses. Then there’s a knock at the door, and Dean is cursing the fact that an undead apocalypse is currently ongoing in the world. It’d be nice if he could just dedicate his whole day to this.

Dean throws a dead guy robe on, throws open the door. Sam’s worried expression softens the lashing Dean’s about to give him. “What’s wrong?”

“Outside,” Sam says. “On the cameras.”

“What is it?” Cas asks, coming up behind Dean in an equal state of undress.

Sam’s gaze darts wide to Cas, momentarily puzzled before smoothing away. “Just outside the entrance. It’s Jack.”

**Author's Note:**

> for the [tumblr prompt](https://vaudelin.tumblr.com/post/185718309793/32-or-2-if-you-are-still-doing-the-prompts-uhh): _“If you interrupt me one more time, so help me god.”_
> 
> We don't have a ton of named residents of Lebanon, so I'm borrowing some from [another fic of mine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17425427).


End file.
